But inside the boundaries of the tiny district serving three schools in Lawndale and Hawthorne, he was feared, known as a shrewd political creature unafraid to mete out punishment to perceived foes.

“With employees, it was an atmosphere of fear,” said Pat Springer, a former public relations employee in the district who is now the president of the Hawthorne/Lennox Rotary Club. “People were afraid to say anything to anybody, because Jose had people — let’s just say spies.”

Among the current and former employees who say they paid a price for being out of favor with Fernandez are assistant superintendents, principals, directors, secretaries and teachers. Sometimes, they paid with their jobs. Other times, their lives were made miserable.

Teachers union President Jack Foreman said the pattern was established early on in Fernandez’s tenure, which began in 2008. That year, he said, Fernandez demoted Fe Woods, principal of the adult school, sending her to an awful assignment.

“He didn’t like her,” Foreman said.

Woods was reassigned midsemester to supervising the dreaded guidance room at Leuzinger High in Lawndale. The room, which no longer exists, was a kind of purgatory that housed students who’d been kicked out of class.

Foreman said Woods was so distraught she called an ambulance.

“I can see why,” he said. “How would you feel if you were a principal one day, and all of a sudden you have been ordered to one of the worst jobs in the school district, with tough gangbanger kids? And she was elderly.”

Reached on his cellphone Friday, Fernandez declined to discuss the charge about the retaliatory environment. But some current and former employees say it felt like they worked in a police state.

‘A living hell’

“He made my life a living hell,” said Kathy Dragone, a former associate principal of the Centinela Valley Adult School, who later filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against the district alleging harassment. The case was settled out of court.

“If I would engage in conversation with anyone Fernandez did not like, within minutes, I would have an email or call from (then-Assistant Superintendent) Bob Cox warning me that my job was being jeopardized by the conversation.”

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Vanessa Martinez, the district’s former director of human resources, said she quit when Cox informed her she’d lost Fernandez’s trust by attending a cake-decorating class with an employee who was on the outs with Fernandez. Martinez and the employee lived in neighboring apartment units and were friends.

“They can’t tell me who I can socialize with after work hours,” said Martinez, adding that Cox often looked out for her, but there was only so much he could do. “I figured I’m going to be on the next layoff list, so I resigned. I wanted to walk out with my head up high.”

Vicente Bravo, once an award-winning principal at Lawndale High and a former administrator in the district office, questioned the legitimacy of the cellphone and mileage allowances given to all managers — as well as the school board — even though they boosted his own salary from $133,000 to $141,000.

After raising concerns, Bravo was demoted back to the classroom. He now works as an administrator in the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

Circumventing rules

Sources say the administration — under Fernandez’s rule — went to creative lengths to circumvent union rules when ridding the district of perceived agitators. Targeted employees might be let go and their job titles changed, so the district did not have to rehire them later. Or entire departments might be gutted to take out one employee.

“The superintendent was really good at keeping his enemies closer,” said Cesar Perez, president of the classified union representing nonteaching staff. “For many years the union was silent because of his fear tactics. He was effective: Nobody wanted to lose their job, especially in the recession.”

Perez said the district once laid off three computer-lab technicians — one for each at Lawndale, Leuzinger and Hawthorne high schools — just to get rid of the one at Leuzinger. The labs were shut down.

A former top-level administrator said the same thing happened to teachers. The former cabinet member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Fernandez during the 2008-09 school year demanded that seven teachers be laid off so as to get rid of an art teacher from Lawndale High whom he didn’t like. (The law requires the district to lay off teachers based on their level of seniority.)

“People who wouldn’t normally have gotten pink slips, including him, got pink slips,” the former administrator said, “and they didn’t get their jobs back.”

Sources say the same fate befell a group of physical education teachers when the district decimated its P.E. program in 2011. The move took advantage of a loophole in the law that enables school districts in California to require just one year of P.E. in high school instead of the customary two.

But some believe the move was a retaliatory measure for the confrontational approach taken by then-teachers union President Betty Setterlund, a P.E. instructor. She didn’t lose her job, but seven P.E. instructors did.

“(Setterlund) made Fernandez front page news in 2010 with his contract and incentives package and some personal business,” said Greg Fuller, one of the laid-off P.E. teachers, referring to a story that ran in the Daily Breeze at that time. “I was at Lloyde Continuation High School and heard that Fernandez was very upset and going to pay P.E. back.”

Setting things right

Cox acknowledges that, in general, hiring and firing mistakes were made under Fernandez’s leadership. Cox said he and the cabinet have been meeting with the teachers and classified unions in an effort to correct them.

“What we have vowed to do is make sure it is not business as usual,” he said. “Our intent is to clean up some of the problems of the past. And we made some commitments to them that we would look at layoff lists. ... We hope our actions speak more loudly than our words.”

Even Cox — who was widely viewed as Fernandez’s enforcer — said he feared for his job at times.

“Certainly there were times when my message to the superintendent was not favorably received, and I worried that that could affect my situation here,” he said. “Particularly in the early years.”

Meanwhile, Martinez, the former human resources director, said Fernandez’s demands would occasionally cause her and Cox to trade a look of disbelief.

“It was a little reign of terror,” she said. “When I tell people I left, they say, ‘Why would you leave a job like that, when you made more than $100,000?’ I’d say: ‘You don’t understand.’